It's the latest trend on Kickstarter – veteran game developers revisiting their old games, with some tweaks to avoid the copyright lawyers.

Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts, Populous creator Peter Molyneux and Syndicate Wars developer Mike Diskett have all taken to the crowdfunding site in recent months – and now Mega Man co-designer Keiji Inafune has joined them with Mighty No. 9.

At first glance, Mighty No. 9 looks, well, mighty similar to Mega Man. And with good reason – it's a 2D action platformer in which a robot hero takes on a succession of robot bosses and absorbs their powers. But this isn't Mega Man, oh no – Mighty No. 9 can transform into different shapes, like a grappling hook, tank or giant hammer. And he's blue and grey, instead of just blue.

Back to the future

There's a host of other Capcom veterans on board the game – including Naoya Tomita, level designer on the original Mega Man, and lead character designer Kimo Kimo, who's worked on Street Fighter Alpha 3 and The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap. Although the Kickstarter pitch video is a little light on actual gameplay, it's a safe bet that Keiji Inafune knows what he's doing. And Kickstarter users think so too – the project's nearly met its US$900,000 goal with 29 days still on the clock.

Mighty No. 9 will launch on PC, with a targeted release date of spring 2015 – other platforms including consoles, Linux and Mac are stretch goals for the project.